Breaking Butterflies

by M. Anjelais

  “You’ll see. We’re going to play a song. I’ll help you, Sphinxie.”

  Slowly, I lifted my hands and obeyed. It took me a moment to arrange myself: I had to weave one arm underneath one of his, and the fact that I was determinedly trying not to touch any other part of him besides his hands didn’t make it any easier. My elbow brushed against his chest and I winced, but he acted as though he hadn’t noticed, smiling softly as I lined my fingers up with his. They were longer than mine, but far more slender, the skin paler. And he was cold to the touch. The skin around his fingernails had a vaguely disturbing bluish tone, as though his blood wasn’t circulating correctly. The sight of it sent a little chill down my spine. My fingers might have looked stubby and awkward compared to his, but at least my hands looked alive.

  Then there we were, next to each other at the piano, hand to hand. He began playing, slowly, his fingers dipping down over the keys, and I let my own follow. The song he was playing was unrecognizable to me, slow and measured. I looked at his face and then down at our hands, biting my lip. His skin might have been cold, but it was soft. I could feel the bones of his hands moving underneath my fingers, like a machine sprung to life. These hands had scarred me. These hands were terrible, beautiful, and running out of time.

  And I was touching them. Next to me, he was smiling vaguely, his eyes half closed.

  “How do you feel, Sphinxie?” he asked, his voice soft. “How does it feel to be here at last?”

  “What do you mean?” I said, looking away from our hands for a moment to try and gauge his intentions. He inclined his head slightly toward me, still smiling.

  “You’re here with me. Finally. After all those years, you’re back to where you’re meant to be.” I stared at him, my mouth open, trying to form words. “You do know that, don’t you, Sphinx?” he said when I couldn’t answer him. “You know that you’re meant to be here with me.”

  I swallowed, thinking of the way I had felt at home when I’d heard that he was sick, how I’d known that I had to come to see him. His hands were still moving gracefully underneath mine, the notes of the piano echoing softly in midair. I looked away from him, and finally found my voice.

  “Yes,” I said slowly, so quietly that I almost couldn’t hear myself. “I know.”

  “Good,” he said, in an even quieter voice, as though he were a figment of my imagination.

  Then he stopped playing and slid his hands out from underneath mine, like a ghost receding into invisibility. I hovered over the piano for a split second before lacing my fingers together in my lap, shivering.

  “What was that?” I said, my voice trembling.

  “What was what? The song? I composed it. It’s my own song.”

  “Really? That’s amazing.” He was silent for a few minutes while I looked at him, waiting for him to respond. “Are you going to play anything else?” I asked when he still didn’t say anything.

  “Is there something you want to hear?” he asked, sounding suddenly impatient.

  I tried desperately to think of some piano piece to request, but the only songs that came to my mind were pop and rock. I felt incredibly uncultured. And he waited, his shoulders slumped idly.

  “Play whatever you want,” I said finally.

  He played something faster and louder, with lower notes that bounced around in a furor.

  “What was that?” I asked curiously.

  “ ‘LoveGame,’ ” he said. “By Lady Gaga.”

  I was fairly stunned by the idea that any song like that could be translated into piano, but there it was, right in front of me. Notes drumming out like footsteps marching.

  “Do you have sheet music for that?” I asked interestedly.

  “No,” he said, sighing. “I just listened to the song and figured out the notes. It’s not as hard as people think it is.” Cadence reached out and slid the cover down over the keys with a gentle thump. He turned his head and looked out the window, and his hair became golden in the sunlight. His head was leaning back slightly, as though he was looking upward.

  “Are you looking for God?” I blurted, startling myself. I hadn’t even known that I was going to say anything. All I knew was that if I were dying, sitting on a piano bench in front of a wide, wide window, with that sun coming in and the last notes I had played echoing into nothing, I would look for God in the view outside that window. I wasn’t a particularly religious person; I knew all the Bible stories, but my mother never took me to church and I wasn’t exactly sure if I believed in God or not. But I knew that if I were dying, I would look for Him. I would try to believe.

  “There is no God, Sphinx,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said quietly. “I just thought maybe —”

  “You thought I’d want God,” said Cadence coolly. “Because I’m dying.”

  “Well, yes,” I admitted. “I mean, it’d be comforting to believe in something …”

  “I believe in myself,” he said, rising from the piano bench and folding his hands behind his back. “I am the only thing that I have. My art, my thoughts, my body, myself.” He paused. “And anyone who believes otherwise is an idiot. All anyone has is their own self.”

  “But even if you don’t believe in God, you have other people,” I said insistently. “Your family and friends, and everyone around you. You have them.”

  He laughed, and it was a cold laugh. “Other people,” he spat, and laughed again. “I don’t need other people, Sphinx. I have all I need right here in front of me, and everywhere I stand is sacred ground.” Like the name of the song he had played on the piano. Sacred ground, a holy place. Beautiful, but vaguely sorrowful. A church, a temple, a mosque, a place of worship. And Cadence stood alone in the light under the window, alone in his holy place, praying to no one, covered by a wall of self-sufficiency and talent and young genius. Dying rapidly, on his sacred ground — but maybe I could join him there, just for a moment, before he slipped away …

  A lump came into my throat. He turned to face me.

  “Are you crying?” he asked me blithely.

  “Not yet,” I told him truthfully.

  “You’re a big girl, Sphinxie,” he whispered, shaking his head. “And big girls don’t cry.”

  He had moved on already. He was no longer thinking of his life, of his philosophy. His mind had already found a new focus. How silly of me to cry over nothing, over another person.

  And the sun was gleaming on the shiny black of the piano; and in the digital camera on the end table, the video of Cadence playing was held in an invisible limbo, a few moments in time. I’m going to cry when he’s gone, I thought suddenly, feeling very small. I’m going to see things that remind me of him, and I’m going to think of this.

  He was preserved in the camera, in my memory, in the molecules of my skin where his fingers had brushed against my cheek. Traces of him were everywhere. No, it didn’t matter that Cadence was wrong — he was still beautiful, he was still going to affect me, he still mattered. In front of me, he stood with his head tilted, watching me so closely. Impulsively, I smiled at him.

  A veil came over his eyes, smooth and perfect. He smiled back vaguely, the edges of his lips pulling up ever so slightly at the sides, and left the room. And the sun streamed in through the window, and danced lightly over the piano, as though it were just another endless, timeless day on planet Earth.

  I took the digital camera with me when I left the room with the piano. Cadence flitted away up to the attic to paint, and I felt that he didn’t want me to shadow him all day, so I went into the living room with the television and sat on the sofa next to my mother. She and Leigh were talking, drinking tea out of the art mugs. Leigh’s eyes were bloodshot, but she wasn’t crying.

  “Whose camera is this?” I asked her, holding it up by the wrist strap of the case. She took it from me and opened it, sliding the silver device out and peering at it.

  “I think this is Cadence’s old camera,” she said, handing it back to me. “He got a new one last Christmas.
He hasn’t used this one in a while. Why?”

  “I didn’t bring mine,” I told her, which was actually true; I hadn’t thought to bring my camera. “I was just wondering if maybe I could use this one while I’m here.”

  “Sure, Sphinxie,” she said. “You can use it. Do you need a new memory card for it?”

  “No, there’s one in there,” I said. “And it’s empty.”

  “Then you’re good,” she said. “Fill it up.” She smiled, a trembling, weak smile.

  And my mind was made up. Every chance I got, I would film Cadence, capture him, save a few more moments of him each day — leaving something for me to hold on to, for Leigh to hold on to. I would have to do it without his knowledge, though; I was fairly sure he would object to being filmed if I asked him outright about it. I slipped my hand through the wrist strap and tightened it, binding myself to my new mission.

  “Okay, thanks, Leigh,” I said.

  “You’re very welcome,” she said, and did that smile again.

  We had arrived at Leigh’s house on a Monday. The rest of Tuesday passed without event. On Wednesday, we managed to get Cadence out of the house and went to the movies, then out to dinner afterward. We sat in silence around the table in the restaurant as Cadence first flirted with and then abused the waitress, telling her that she was too slow and that he’d never been in a worse restaurant in all his life. I stared down at my lap, trying not to notice as Cadence raised his voice and people sitting near us turned to look at our table. When I looked up, my mother’s eyes were wide with shock at his behavior, and Leigh’s cheeks were burning pink with embarrassment.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered feebly, tears welling in her eyes.

  “That’s all right,” said my mother, shaken.

  I couldn’t say anything. When we were finished, Cadence swept out ahead of us all, and the waitress began to clear away our dishes, scowling.

  Leigh shakily opened her wallet and handed her a fifty-pound note. The scowl disappeared from the waitress’s face as she carefully tucked the money into the pocket of her jeans.

  “Thank you,” she told Leigh, suddenly glowing with surprise.

  “No, thank you,” said Leigh. “You were very patient with my son.” As the waitress walked away, Leigh glanced toward my mother and me, and said in a low voice, “I know that doesn’t really make up for it, I know I should have said something to him, but he’s —” She hesitated, her eyes tearing up again. “He doesn’t have a lot of time left and he’s scared and I don’t think he can help acting up.”

  “Of course,” said my mother, her voice still wobbly as she tried to compose herself. “Of course. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Sphinxie and I know that.”

  All I could think was that the waitress did not know Cadence was dying, and she did not know what I was doing there with him. She only knew that she had just spent an hour waiting on the most awful teenage boy she had ever met in her life, one who sat surrounded by silent women who didn’t even try to tell him off. She didn’t know that he was sick, that he was part of his mother’s precious life’s plan. She had gotten money for not blowing up at us, and she liked that. Money was good. I saw her speaking to another waitress as we walked out, showing her the money. It was the best tip she had ever had, she said.

  Later that night, I overheard Leigh and my mother talking while I got ready for bed. They were sitting on Leigh’s bed, cross-legged, with the door of Leigh’s room cracked halfway open and the television on to drown out the sound of their voices. It was a failed strategy; I could hear them anyway.

  “He used to have more control,” Leigh said. “He used to be able to charm anyone. Girls fell all over him at his school.” She took a shaky breath. “It’s like he’s breaking down, or something … losing his touch. Giving in to the side of him that just wants to bite, you know?” There was a pause. “Sometimes I think I shouldn’t have stopped the therapy,” Leigh muttered. “But he hated it … he really hated it, and it didn’t seem like it was going to fix anything.”

  I felt an uncomfortable prickle at the back of my neck, like there was an insect crawling on me, and I stepped back from Leigh’s door. What was I doing standing there anyway? I’d learned my lesson about eavesdropping on my mother and Leigh a long time ago. It seldom led to hearing anything that I wanted to have weighing down on my mind.

  I went to my room and closed the door behind me. Would Cadence dissolve completely by the end? He was losing his touch, Leigh had said. Would the side of him that terrified me get more stage time eventually than the side that captivated me?

  The digital camera was on my bedside table, and I reached for it, turned it on, and played back the clip of him on the piano.

  On Thursday, there was an explosion. He disappeared up into the attic, or so I thought, and this time I followed him, ascending the stairs and stepping out into the spacious room filled with paintings of blue, blue, blue. He wasn’t there. He must have gone into his bedroom instead. I went over and stood in front of the tall canvas, wanting to see if he’d filled it out more.

  He had. More blues; what seemed like hundreds of different shades of blue stretched out over the canvas in spirals. Weaving through each other and coming out again, like fluid, melting serpents, their bodies made of water. I stepped forward for a closer look.

  “Sphinx!” came his sharp voice from behind me. I whipped around and he flew into the room, up the stairs and straight toward me; I looked and his eyes were on fire, flames rising higher behind a thin layer of ice. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, rounding on me. He’d crossed the room in an instant to where I stood in front of the blue canvas, a too-bright light turned on before my eyes had time to adjust. He was already looming over me, his entire body tensed with anger, seeming taller than he ever had. His hands were clenched, shaking, at his sides. I shrank backward.

  “I thought you were up here,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady. I reminded myself that Leigh and my mother were just downstairs. One scream, and they would come running. All I had to do was scream. “I’m sorry, I won’t come up here again …”

  “What were you thinking? No one is allowed up here without me. You can’t just come up here,” he said, his voice louder and higher, as piercing as his eyes.

  “Cadence,” I said, taking another step backward from him.

  I wanted to escape. I wished the floor would open up and swallow me right out of the situation. Instead, I was trapped, standing underneath the skyscraper as it rose, tremendous and earthshaking, out of an icy wasteland — just like when I was little. I was still little. I was on the ground, head back, as the skyscraper became taller, and I was inside it on the top floor with the door locked, all at the same time.

  Did you know that my doctors said there was something wrong with my mind? You didn’t, did you? The words that he’d whispered to me on the swings echoed suddenly in my mind, and mentally I was kicking myself for letting his touch, his piano-playing, his everything distract me. I hadn’t thought anything through. I hadn’t bothered to dwell on it, to wonder what he meant. What was wrong with him? What was I thinking?

  “You’re just as stupid as you were all those years ago,” Cadence hissed. “You’re just as stupid. You didn’t even know enough to run away from someone with a knife.” His breathing was hard and raspy. “It’s just like all those years ago,” he said again. His mouth was pulled taut in a line, but there was an air of excitement about him, an eagerness, like a dog bouncing in front of someone holding a tennis ball. In my mind I saw the reflection on the surface of the switchblade. Click, click, click. I screamed, and downstairs the footsteps started pounding, reminding me further of that day he had cut me.

  He jerked his head around, hearing our mothers coming, and when he turned back, his entire face was narrowed, his teeth bared, like a snarling animal. His arms jerked forward in a flash and he shoved me; I fell over backward and landed on my butt, my heart beating out of my chest, feeling panicked. Our mot
hers were on the attic stairs now, and he knew it. He won’t do anything, he won’t do anything, I told myself. I wanted to get up and run, but I was frozen to the floor, my hair falling into my eyes. He stared down at me for a split second, and his face was unreadable; I was terrified of what I didn’t know, of what was going on inside his head. And he was just staring and staring, his eyes turning brighter and brighter, perfect jaw taut, looking as though he was teetering on the edge of charging at me again.

  What is wrong with him? And why, why, why does he want me here?

  I found my ability to move again and began scooting backward across the floor. I didn’t want to stand up just in case I ended up being weak at the knees; I wasn’t sure I could trust my legs to support me yet. He let out a shriek of frustration and stamped his foot against the floor like a two-year-old having a temper tantrum, and then I saw Leigh in the doorway, white-faced and frantic, my mother right behind her.

  “Cadence!” she yelled, her voice shaking. “Cadence, don’t you touch Sphinxie!”

  He whirled to face her and burst into tears: loud, childish, rasping sobs that shook his entire body. My mother disappeared from the doorway and reappeared at my side, her hands gripping my shoulders. And relief, warm and firm, enfolded my chest and began thawing out the buildup of ice.

  “Are you okay?” my mother gasped, out of breath.

  “I’m fine,” I said, stumbling to my feet. I was shaky, but not as much as I had expected to be. I did a ridiculous and involuntary little jog in place, like an athlete trying to shake off an injury. “I’m totally fine.”

  When I looked over, Cadence had slumped to the floor; Leigh came up and hugged him, letting him cry passionately into her shoulder. He was sobbing and clinging to Leigh like a very small child. It didn’t look right; it was like a bad acting job, an over-the-top B movie.

  “I’m sorry!” he wailed, and she stroked the back of his head; I felt an exquisite kind of pity for her as she sat there trying so hard to be a mother, a good mother, comforting this child who was too old to be crying like this. Why was he doing this, forcing tears from his eyes as though he was trying to prove something? Was it all just because he was dying, all just misplaced emotions that he couldn’t hold back? I looked over to my mother and saw her brow furrowing in mixed confusion and discomfort. Just like me, she couldn’t make sense of his actions.